Recent Comments

About

Owner of PageF30.com.
Translator of Demian by Hermann Hesse into English - an interlinear translation for German students and those who want to see the original text.
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/mithradates
Fluent in Japanese, Korean. Proficient in Mandarin, Turkish, German, French, Portuguese, others.

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

This article has a few numbers on the language preferences for businesses in Luxembourg, where French is in first place due in large part to a larger number of people from France and Belgium coming to work (3.5 times more than 20 years ago).

Since Luxemburgish is so close to German I always just add them together. So 55.8% French, 24.9% German or almost German, then English at 17.7%.

I've been taking a close look at the situation of German-speaking Belgium over the past few weeks, considering Belgium's constitutional crises it always seems to face every few years, because were Flanders and Wallonia to ever go their separate ways the question of German-speaking Belgium is always one that remains unanswered. That part of Belgium used to be part of the German Empire, and in the event of a breakup there is little reason to suspect that it would choose to join Wallonia, or France. The three possibilities usually mentioned are:

Option 3 is apparently appealing because of the higher salaries and pensions in Luxembourg compared to Germany. On the other hand, even a tiny region of just 70,000 people would be a big addition to a country of that size, and could turn it from a 'half French, half German, 100% Luxembourgish' kind of atmosphere into more of a stronger German, Holy Roman Empire successor state kind of feel.